Prepare for take-off.
Virgin, already famed
for its cheapo Atlantic
flights is moving into
jump jets as well. And
you could be the pilot -
if you get hold of a copy
of Falcon Patrol II that's
just been released for the
Speccy.
Single-handed you
must defend a desert
town as it comes under
attack from wave after
wave of deadly enemy
helicopters. And they've
a fearsome arsenal to use
against you - missiles,
flak batteries and radar
jammers.
Virgin Games is
convinced it'll be a
runway success, so if you
want more info on
departure times give
them a buzz on nn-nnn nnnn.

19th April 1985
I found out today that
my secret diaries are
being made into a
computer game. Can't
say I'm very pleased as I
haven't even got a
computer. Maybe I can
persuade Dad to sell the
dog and buy me a
Spectrum. I phoned
Pandora to tell her about

my wonderful plan but
she wasn't impressed.
She said I'd be selling my
soul for software next.
Anyway, once the
game's out I'll be dead
popular, then she'll be
sorry. I only hope they
cut out the bits about my
spots. I'd better phone
Joe or Greg Lang at
Mosaic Publishing Ltd
on nn-nnn nnnn and find
out.

They say it never rains but it pours! But we nearly drowned in the torrents of entries that came flooding down the YS mineshaft for our April Showers Compo.
Remember we asked you to find the 61st room in Miner Willy's mansion. Well, it seems that there's hardly a person in the kingdom who didn't find it. Course, we did catch a couple of you - one of the 'wettest' entries came from Steven Smithson of Blackpool who wrote in, "I claim the prize for telling you where the 61st room is ... in Dave Nicholl's head." Sorry Steve - that's where the room came from, but it's definitely in JSW now! And we'd have thought that coming from Blackpool you'd have been the first to find it. We'll let Gareth Morgan of Great Sankey rhyme you into the secret: No problem finding
April Showers,
No searching round
for hours and hours,

It's really quite
within your reach,
Climb up the rope
above the beach!
As A L Hodson of Northfields wrote, where else would you expect to find a shower but when you're on the beach!
And now the moment you've all been waiting for - who's the lucky person whose name came out of the Ed's hat first? Well, our congratulations go to J Blackler of Lancaster - keep an eye out for a large package of 10 Speccy games in the very near future.
So, you all thought that April Showers was an April fool and then you found it wasn't (well, most of you found it wasn't). But hang on a sec, what have you just been doing with your time? We thought you'd got JSWitis months ago and here you are dusting down your copies and playing it all over again. Now don't you think that's just a little bit foolish?

The recent interest in Data Communications (or Comms as it's
come to be known) is growing rapidly. This is partly due to the
coming of Prestel and Micronet, and partly because it's now
possible to lay your hands on some relatively cheap modems. But
why should you shell out for one? The modems may be quite
cheap but it can still be expensive if you spend hours on the
phone to some remote computer.
All very confusing for the beginner but help is at hand. It comes
in the form of an excellent book from Longman Publishing called
The Hacker's Handbook. The authors, Geof Wheelwright and Ian
Scales, start you off from scratch with a short discussion on why
Comms is important. They then take you through all the different
stages ot communicating, from buying a modem to a complete
run-down on how to use Prestel and other remote database
systems. The style's clear and easy to understand and all of the
technical jargon is explained in footnotes and in a glossary of
terms. This really is an excellent introduction to Comms with a
lot of good, and up to the minute, information.
The second book is also, rather confusingly, called The
Hacker's Handbook, this time from Century Communications. Its
aims, however, are completely different. Hugo Cornwall (and
there's a made-up name if ever I've heard one!) sets out to show
you how to 'hack' - to gatecrash into computers when you
haven't been invited or when you haven't paid the entrance fee.
To boldly go where no-one wants you and where you shouldn't
be! Remember the hoo-ha about the Prestel hacker who broke
into Prince Philip's private account? So far, the results of hacking
haven't been too disastrous - no nuclear red alerts like the one
in the film Wargames, or none we know about. But you must
remember that hacking amounts to stealing, whether of
information or computer time. Indiscriminate hacking can also
cause damage which costs a lot to put right if the hacker manages
to do something really 'clever' by accident.
The book does contain some very useful information,
especially the chapter on radio communications, but I can't really
recommend it. Most computers holding 'secure' data are very
well protected and I just can't see the point in spending a fortune
on phone bills trying to get into them. You'd be better advised to
use the money to gain legitimate access to the computer. At least
that way you won't have the police knocking on your door in a
dawn raid! Dave Nicholls

Welcome back, hackers.
Straight into a game which
really is the pits, Monty Mole.
My ol' friend Chris Wood has
been tunnelling into it for you.
The game loads as a 48K block
using up all the Speccy's
memory, so entering the
POKEs has to be done using a
special loader. It's a long
listing, so a short explanation's
called for. First, it loads Monty Mole lower down in memory
than it should be, leaving 1000
bytes in which to put a special
loader. This gives Monty
infinite lives, moves part of

itself onto the screen, shifts
what's left of the game back to
its proper place, then runs it -
phew, no wonder it's not short!
The data statements in the
Basic program can be removed
if you don't want a certain
feature. Leave in the last line of
3 zeroes, though. Chris has also
included a Game Abandon
feature, using the G key. As
this overwrites part of the
scanning routine, the Basic
asks which joystick option you
want, and disposes of the other.
So, bash in the listing Mole fans and then save it to tape.
Load up the first part of
Monty Mole - this will clear
the screen - then stop the tape
and reset your Spectrum. Next,
load in the new loader
program, RUN it and if all is
well you will get a STOP
message so that you can test it
before you save it to tape the
first time. Then, enter
CONTINUE and re-start the
original tape without re-
winding it. Don't worry about
the messy screen as this will
clear when it has finished
loading. Cue Colonel Bogey
and off you go.
From one mighty megahack
to another. Piers Pettman has
caught Horace fever, sending
us not just infinite lives POKEs
but infinite POKEs! There are
no less than nine to help you
combat the alien arachnids in
Horace and the Spiders. Off we
go then, remembering to add 0
after each of the POKEs: no
hills on the first screen -
25142, no spiders either -
28773, ropes are pulled in fast
- 29626, jump onto next rope

when you like - 29720, all
spiders on the third level die
instantly (you don't believe in taking any chances, do you? Ed.) - 30070, hills and more
hills for the masochists
amongst you - 25218, slow
spiders on the third level -
29910, 'infinite' spiders on the
third level - 30116, and if
you're not too keen on the
ropes being pulled on the third
level try POKE 29626,52. If
you still can't cope after that lot
I suggest you forget the spiders
and flush yourself down the
plughole!
If you fancy a Ski-ing jaunt
with Horace but have left your
Green Cross Code book at
home, try POKE 29009,0
which will clear the road of
most of its traffic. You'll still
have to keep an eye open for
the ambulances.Andrew Dawson's on the
right lines with the POKEs he's
sent in for Stop the Express.
First you'll have to load the
program and de-crypt it by
MERGEing the first part,
pausing the tape and typing
CLEAR 25999 and finally
LOAD "" CODE. Next, do
POKE 48111,201:
RANDOMIZE USR 48096
and you're free to poke
around. For endless lives do
POKE 34464,183: POKE
34926,183: POKE 35257,0,
for unlimited time do POKE
35780,0: POKE 39549,0 and
to change the starting carriage
number PPOKE 40673,0: 40674,0: POKE 40674,0:
POKE 49261,N where N is
number 21 carriage [note]. Be careful
on this last bit though, as some
values will crash it - the game
not the train! When you're
ready for the off, use
RANDOMIZE USR 32768
and it's full steam ahead!
A final quickie from Andrew
- if you're having trouble with
Arcadia from Imagine
(remember them? Ed.) then
POKE 25776,0 will make life a
little easier.
I know how annoying it can
be when you own a game that
appears in this column and you
just can't get the POKEs to
work. A lot of you had that
problem with Frank N Stein.
Well, it seems there were two
versions of the game and Dave Leander's come to the rescue if
you were unlucky last time -
POKE 34124,0. It seems likely
that Ghostbuster's got a twin
too - any takers on that one?Kent Sorensen from Sweden
has ventured into Level 9's
Adventure Quest to come up
with a POKE that lets you
remove any one problem from
the game at a time. Simply
press Break, then POKE
26388 with the room number
you're stuck at, then
CONTINUE. As he points out
this is especially useful if you
don't have the keys from
location 18 to unchain the
snowman. It's about time we
had a few adventurous POKEs,
so keep 'em coming.